


buttercup

by hi_hello_hey_there



Series: you don't have to say i love you (to say i love you) [19]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Discovery, Gen, Harry Potter References, Homework, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29342685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_hello_hey_there/pseuds/hi_hello_hey_there
Summary: "Take a deep breath."
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Carrie Wilson
Series: you don't have to say i love you (to say i love you) [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942267
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61





	buttercup

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the lateness! Enjoy!

The weather outside is dark and stormy, the perfect weather for staying inside and curling up with friends. When Julie, Flynn, and Carrie had come into the studio directly after school, Alex knew that they decided to cancel their Friday night shopping plans so they wouldn’t get caught outside in the rain. Few words were exchanged as they explained the situation and took up their own spaces in the room. Flynn and Carrie occupy the couch next to Luke, who’s working on songs, in the chair. Flynn holds her water bottle between her knees and unfurls the embroidery floss, expertly braiding and tying knots as she goes while Carrie grabs her sketchbook and colored pencils, setting to work on a new page. Julie takes a moment to water her plants before lighting a candle that smells like beechwood and climbing the ladder to the loft to join Alex and Reggie.

She only smiles at him, though her eyebrows are pinched together, as she settles between them, dangling her legs over the edge and grabbing her songwriting book from her bag. She leans her head on Reggie’s shoulder who doesn’t say anything and only shifts the book on his lap so her neck isn’t at an awkward angle. The room is silent, the only sounds filling the air the rain and thunder from outside and the occasional  _ scritch scritch _ of pencil on paper as they work.

Alex holds his own notebook propped against one of the boards of the railing, working on a song that will never see the light of day if he has any say in the matter. He’s not as good as Luke or Julie when it comes to words; setting others’ words to a rhythm had always been his strong suit. But sometimes when he can’t get the words to leave his brain any other way, he writes. He never shows anyone, but he writes it anyway and then he can stop thinking about it. This one in particular seems to just flow out onto the paper.  _ Not a day goes by I don’t think of you _ , he writes.  _ I never meant to grow apart when we grew up. They will never leave my mind, the things we used to do. And the way you were always there for me, buttercup. _ Well, his songs always ended up sounding really cheesy anyway.

He’s pulled from the thoughts of his buttercup by Reggie saying, “He named his kid Albus Severus?” His voice takes on the same tone it did when he found out about Jar Jar Binks. Immediately, Flynn and Carrie look up from what they’re doing.

“Right?” Flynn says, commiseration in her tone. And the silence devolves from there. Julie rushes down the ladder and Reggie poofs to the main floor where they start up a conversation about the book series Carlos introduced him to. It had taken him a while to get to the seventh book and with Julie warning him every step of the way about how problematic the author is, he had really taken his time with them. Once they start throwing words around like “boggart” and “quidditch,” Alex shoots Luke a confused look only to see he’s already getting one, making him chuckle.

“Not to mention that Dumbledore literally left him in a place he knew would be abusive because it was for the greater good?” Julie rants. Alex has no idea what any of it means, but she seems passionate about it and it draws his attention. “There are about a million other people Harry could’ve chosen for a namesake that would’ve been better than him, starting with Hagrid and ending with his damn owl.”

A round of laughs goes up amongst the four of them and Alex sees Luke shake his head out of the corner of his eye. “That man is responsible for every bad thing that has happened in Harry’s life all the way up to his eleventh birthday,” Carrie adds, getting head nods of agreement from the rest of them.

It’s then that Luke’s eyes snap up to his with dawning realization on his face. “Your birthday is this weekend.”

There it is. A clap of thunder rumbles outside and then the room falls silent. That lasts for all of about two microseconds before the girls erupt into questions. He’d been trying to avoid talking about it; in his current situation, his birthday proved to be a little more than upsetting for extraneous reasons and he didn’t even want to think about it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Julie demands. “I feel like a terrible friend.”

Alex sighs, sending his eyes skyward and taking a calming breath before popping down to the main floor to talk. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to celebrate. And you’re not a terrible friend. You’re literally the exact opposite of that.”

She reaches for his hand and he gives it without hesitation. “Any particular reason why? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just tell me to stop and I will,” she’s quick to add.

Maybe just talking about it would be beneficial. “My baby sister and I have the same birthday, Valentine’s Day, and we always did our own thing that day. Even after I came out, she still supported me and I just miss her a lot. I hate that I left her alone.”

“Hey,” Flynn says. She rises from her spot and comes to stand beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “It’s not your fault. I bet you miss her.”

“Yeah,” He says with a small, bitter smile.

Luke has a pained look on his face. “Sorry, bro. I forgot.”

“It’s okay,” Alex says honestly.

“My mom is always sad on her birthday, too,” Carrie says. “She and my uncle also shared a birthday and they used to be really close before he passed. Every year she comes back home around that time to visit his grave but even before then, she liked to be alone that day.”

Flynn’s hand tightens involuntarily on Alex’s shoulder. “Isn’t your mom’s birthday on Valentine’s Day, too?”

Carrie nods, her head tilting to the side a little. “Yeah. Weird coincidence.”

“I’ve been thinking about it the last couple of days is all.” Alex drops his head, listening to the rain bouncing off the windows and roof when a sudden memory strikes him. “When we were little, we lived in New York City, and my sister was obsessed with flowers. She lived for our family trips to the botanical gardens and always wanted a garden of her own. She would draw roses and tulips for me to hang in my room and I always did. Buttercups were her favorite, though. I saved up all my pocket money one birthday and bought her a window box so she could grow some. I started calling her buttercup after that and it didn’t stop.” When he looks up, Reggie is beaming fondly at him, but Carrie looks, for lack of a better phrase, like she’s seen a ghost. “What’s wrong?”

She swallows thickly, blinking rapidly and taking a deep breath. “My mom, her favorite flower is buttercups and she always talked about how her brother put her art up no matter how bad it was.”

Now, that is strange. Alex goes to sit by her as she looks more than a little spooked and he’s starting to feel that way himself. “What’s your mom’s name?”

“Her name is Elizabeth, but she goes by Beth.”

If he were alive, Alex surely would’ve fainted at this point. As it is, he feels a little woozy and he fumbles with what to say next. “Beth? As in Beth Mercer?” he settles on.

The remaining color drains out of Carrie’s face. “How did you know that?”

Alex feels tears rise to his eyes and he tries desperately to not let them fall. “That’s my sister’s name.”

Distantly, he hears a gasping noise from somewhere in the room, but he’s too focused on the abundance of emotions cycling on Carrie’s face to care. She seems to be having some kind of revelation, shaking her head at herself and her eyebrows becoming closely knitted together. Then she looks him dead in the eye. “Uncle Lex?”

Try as he might, the tears begin to stream down his face. “That’s what she called me. Alexander was too hard for her to say when she was little.”

Before he can do anything else, Carrie is pitching herself forward, truly startling him when she doesn’t fall through. His arms come up automatically, one hand gently cradling her head as she sobs. “I can’t believe this,” she whispers against his neck.

Over her head, he can see the others starting at them incredulously. He just holds her tighter and says, “Me neither.”

“Wait,” she’s saying then, pushing back to look at the boys. “Were you the boys in my dad’s band?”

“Ta-da,” Luke says, lackluster jazz hands to punctuate it.

“Oh my god.” Her hands fly to her head, rubbing at her temples. “All this time, you were right here. And my dad knew. He must’ve known since the Orpheum. And my mom…” She trails off as her breathing picks up.

Alex can recognize the telltale signs of a panic better than anyway. “Woah, hey, hey,” he says. He puts his hands out palm up as an invitation. She accepts and he squeezes firmly once. **“Take a deep breath.”** He demonstrates and she follows. They do this until her breathing is back to normal and she looks less on the verge of throwing up. “Okay?”

She nods. “Yeah, I’m good. And I’m not calling you uncle anymore, just so you know.” She cracks a smile that Alex copies.

“So,” Reggie begins, shit eating grin on his face. “Bobby and your sister?”

“Don’t even do that, dude,” Alex immediately retorts. Some of the tension in the room melts away as everyone laughs. “I’m already gonna kill him the next time we see him.”

“Uh, please don’t kill my dad,” Carrie interjects.

“Oh, so he’s told you about the whole song-stealing, name-changing thing?” Luke is trying to make a joke, but Alex can hear the strain in his voice.

Carrie shrugs and makes a so-so gesture with her hand. “Well, yeah, but that’s his first name. Trevor is his middle name and Wilson is my nana’s maiden name.”

There’s a long stretch of silence before Julie busts out laughing. Like bent over, gasping for air laughter. “How did you guys miss that?” she asks between breaths. “You’ve been friends since you were kids!”

It gets Flynn chuckling too. “I guess we know who didn’t have the group brain cell that day.”

Luke throws his hands up. “I don’t even know what that means.” It just makes Julie laugh harder and Alex can’t help the snort that comes out.

With the others trying to get Julie upright again, fruitlessly so as she keeps doubling over when she thinks of it again, Carrie leans into his space a little. “My middle name is Alexandra, you know.”

Alex’s whole body warms at the thought. Of course Beth would name her kid after him. A broad grin splits his face when she taps her finger on his knee in a familiar rhythm.  _ Tap. Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. _ It had been one of Alex and Beth’s many secret language signals, shorthand for I love you. He taps it back, feeling a great peace he hadn’t felt in a long time radiate through him.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is so late! Sunday was a National Americans-Sit-In-Front-Of-Their-TV-And-Pretend-To-Care-About-A-Football-Team-Not-From-Their-Hometown Day, Monday was Blue-Has-A-Panic-Attack-About-The-Future-Day, and yesterday I was exhausted. Every time I know I have something on a Sunday, I'm always like _just edit it the day before_ and then my brain goes _no <3_. But next week the real crazy begins and everything should be back to your regularly scheduled programming! Prompts can be found [here](https://p0ck3tf0x.tumblr.com/post/98502010026/one-hundred-ways-to-say-i-love-you) and all of them are open except for 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 31, 33, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 48, 49, 50, 53, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 82, 83, 86, 91, 92, 98, and 99. Send me a PM on tumblr or leave a comment here to make a request. Love you all lots!
> 
> main: [hi-hello-hey-there](https://hi-hello-hey-there.tumblr.com/)  
> side: [toziers-token](https://toziers-token.tumblr.com/)
> 
> love, blue


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